


Someone New

by akimikono



Series: RWBY Rare Pair Fics [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Awkward Flirting, Dating is hard, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, OTP: Elderbee, OTP: Lionheart, Past Relationship(s), Rare Pairings, Rarepair, Tai/Raven mentioned, Taiyang never got with Summer, Trying too hard, Yang and Ruby aren't his children in this AU, crackship, same age au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:56:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22686607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akimikono/pseuds/akimikono
Summary: Tai can't help but compare his ex to a new girl he's recently met. (Title from "Someone New" by Hozier.)
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Taiyang Xiao Long, Raven Branwen/Taiyang Xiao Long
Series: RWBY Rare Pair Fics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1631953
Kudos: 2





	Someone New

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! This was originally posted on the RWBY Amino app by me. If you are interested in commissioning a fanfic featuring your favorite character, OTP, team, OC, or yourself, then please message me!

The first time Tai saw her, one thought ran through his mind. 

  
_She’s just like her._

  
Long, black hair. Cold, calculating gaze. Deft, intentional movements. A mental fidgeting, like their minds were at unease, waiting for any threat to jump out and attack them.   
The first time Tai heard her speak, he was surprised at how soft her voice was. It wasn’t entirely kind or all that inviting, but it wasn’t combative or argumentative, like how the other woman’s was. It was one of the several differences between the two that he started to notice over time. 

  
Blake was quiet and alert, but out of a genuine curiosity and attentiveness to her surroundings. Raven had been quiet and alert so she could determine her next move. Blake’s eyes lit up when she talked about things she was passionate about — books, the Faunus, justice, her people. While some of these things were also important to Raven, her stoic face rarely held any emotion other than smug satisfaction or total disdain, and her eyes only glimmered when it was with the knowledge of her impending victory over someone. 

  
This wasn’t to say Raven was a bad person — on the contrary, she was beautiful, unbelievably brilliant, compassionate in her own way, and almost stupidly loyal. Again, in her own way. There were sides of her that Tai, and only Tai, ever saw. A midnight vulnerability; a momentary twitch of an honest smile; a dusting of pink a thousand shades lighter than the red of her dress, crossing her cheeks after their first kiss. But these were only small fragments of Raven, very small and very elusive. Almost as elusive as the kisses she withheld from him and kept hidden on the corner of her mouth, right where that smirk both started and ended. 

  
Blake was nearly as elusive as Raven; her eyes darted away from Tai’s, seemingly afraid to hold contact any longer than she needed to. Her smile was reserved for the times when no one else was around and she was caught off guard with a gift she wasn’t expecting, or when they shared quiet conversations at the table, drinking coffee after dinner and accidentally speaking over one another in excitement. 

  
There were so many ways they were alike, and so many ways that they were different. Raven’s contentment was obvious when she was sitting with a mug of tea in her hands, the warring world outside far away, and the promise of a better future on the horizon for her and her tribe. It wasn’t often, but there were enough times for Tai to recognize the genuine peace radiating from Raven; the rare times she was comfortable enough to let her guard down around him. 

  
Blake’s happiness seeped out of her, despite her efforts to keep it hidden. Her pale cheeks glowed, her eyes shone, and a sort of feline purr rumbled through her chest while joy radiated out like a halo as gold as her eyes. Most days she was as reserved and quiet as Remnant’s broken moon; these moments, though, she blazed as brightly as the summer sun, and Tai couldn’t help but admire her. 

  
Neither of them were better or worse than the other. They were just themselves. 

* * *

Tai knew he loved Raven, even when he thought she was a scary and self-isolated girl in school. There was something about her that drew him to her; he didn’t know if it was because she was so intimidating, or because he had this idea of breaking through her shell and discovering the “real” Raven. Whatever it was, he stuck with his first instincts and let himself fall harder and harder for her until she finally reciprocated. 

  
_In her own way._

  
That was the way the Branwen girl worked. Everything was her way and no one would make her change. But Tai didn’t want to change her; he just wanted to get to know her. It felt like an eternity before she agreed to go on a date with him, and it felt like a blessing every time she went out with him after that. 

  
The day she left to return home without even a goodbye felt like that cold, empty eternity he had endured in the days before Raven had even looked at him. It had been Ozpin who put them on a team — with his stupid eye contact rule. It had been Qrow who warned him that his sister was only committed to her own morals and ideals. It was Summer who told him that the only way to find out the answer was to ask the question — a lot. 

  
Soon after that, it wasn’t just Raven who was gone. It was Summer, lost on a mission. Then Qrow, following orders blindly from their old headmaster. It felt like Tai was the only one left; the only one from Team STRQ. Most days he wondered what had gone so badly, what deity had twisted their fates so cruelly, that he was the only one of his team left, the only one who hadn’t thrown himself into a foolish ideal or cause. 

  
Maybe that’s what was wrong with him. He had no cause. No leader. No purpose. He wasn’t much of a Hunter; he was the remains of a naive student and broken soldier.

  
As time passed, he realized he wasn’t quite as useless as he thought — maybe not even as useless as the self-deprecating Qrow thought himself to be. He was still strong and had a moral compass that many seemed to lack, or at least seemed to ignore. The forces of the Grimm appeared larger every day that passed. 

  
Little by little, his direction returned. 

  
_Beacon is a good school. Vale is a city worth protecting. Remnant is home. These people are family._

  
When he was almost himself again, but not quite there, was when he first saw Blake. She was in a bookstore — of course — browsing the fiction section. Romance. Historical romance. Dramatic historical romance. With ninjas. The girl knew what she was after and she was not going to let anyone get in between her and the newest release of whatever book she was clutching tight to her chest. She threw cautious glances around her like she felt the judging eyes of every patron in the store on her. 

  
But only one pair of eyes were on her. Tai’s. And it was because of her remarkable resemblance to Raven. Her yellow eyes and huddled stance were dead giveaways that she was not, indeed, Raven; they were a stark contrast to the fiery crimson eyes and ridgepole posture of the latter. 

  
Half of Tai screamed in some type of agonized joy that she looked so similar to his former love — but the other half, an admittedly larger half, maybe more like a rational two-thirds of him, screamed louder. 

  
_That’s not fair._

  
What truly wasn’t fair was that his rational side was two thirds, when his selfish and childish side was only one third. It meant that the rational side would win. And he didn’t want it to. Not this time. But it needed to. Especially this time. 

  
One look at the girl standing at the counter with lien in her hands, he realized what that stupid rational part was saying. 

  
_That’s not fair to her. She doesn’t know who you are. She doesn’t know who Raven is. She isn’t a replacement. She isn’t a decoy. She isn’t something to fix you or to make you happy._

  
Sometimes he really hated that rational side. 

  
But it was right. This girl, whoever she was, was not Raven and she was not a replacement for her. She didn’t even know him, and it wasn’t fair to put that on her. So, irrational side throwing a fit, Tai left without even so much as a backward glance at the girl. 

* * *

It was a week later when he ran into her outside of a fish restaurant. His rational side won out again when it told him to leave her alone. She was trying to eat her fish in peace.

  
Two weeks after that he saw her three times in just as many days, and he was starting to think it was an awfully strange coincidence. The next time he ran into her, he knew it was something else. And this time his rational side told him it was okay to talk to her. 

  
_Finally._

  
It was brief and awkward and left him wishing he had never opened his mouth. It started with a confident stride up to her, leaning against the bookshelf she was browsing and crossing his arms with a sideways, but broad, smile. 

  
“Hey,” he tried to say but his nerves twisting in his stomach also twisted his tongue and it came out as a thick, “ _Hyeeugh_.” 

  
The girl looked about as disgusted and put off as anyone could have been and she turned to leave. This wasn’t ideal. In an attempt to salvage an already downhill situation, Tai tried to kick off the bookshelf to stand and reach out to her to keep her from leaving. Instead, he knocked the book out of her hand — smacked it to the ground, really — and simultaneously kicked hard enough against the bookshelf to tilt it back. There was a brief, silent moment where it felt like the air had been sucked out of the room as he and the girl turned to watch the bookshelf crash in slow motion to the ground, sending wood splinters and crushed books sliding across the tile floor. 

  
_This is definitely not ideal. Not in the least bit._

  
The silent vacuum that had been created in the bookstore had quickly vanished once the books hit the ground and the sound seemed to come back even louder than what was normal. Every head in the shop snapped toward him, eyes wide; there were some screams let out, and Tai could just hear the price of the damage adding up and his bank account draining. 

  
“Wow.” 

  
Tai’s own attention flew away from the shattered pieces of wood on the floor and back to the girl next to him. He was absolutely sure that the disapproving syllable just uttered behind his left ear had been from her. Her golden eyes were fixated on the mess at their feet. Was it just him or did the corner of her hair bow twitch? Finally, she managed to utter another sentiment of disapproval. 

  
“That’s going to cost a lot.” 

  
Her voice, something Tai had thought maybe he would never get to hear, was quiet but firm. It wasn’t a shy, accidental comment that had slipped past her lips. It had been intentional. She wanted him to hear that. She wanted him to know that he had screwed up. Not that he needed any help with that. But he was surprised at just how soft her voice was; her sure-footed gait and stern look gave him the impression of a commanding and loud voice. Even if she had been huddled against the bookshelves, throwing nervous glances over her shoulder, he figured it had more to do with the literature she held and less to do with her personality. 

  
Where Raven could be correctly gauged by her appearance, this girl was — so far, in the thirty seconds he had spent blundering around her — different than how he imagined. It made him wonder exactly how different she was from how she looked, and how different she was from Raven. 

  
He didn’t realize, though, standing there among the remains of a splintered bookshelf and hundreds of scattered novels, that he wouldn’t get to see this girl until three months later by accident on a Hunting trip on the outskirts of Vale. He also didn’t know it would take a full year before he really started to get to know her, and that he would discover she had been in school the same time he and the rest of Team STRQ were, and they were only a year apart. 

  
But as the years passed and Tai learned to let go of Raven and all the ideas he had of her — every “what if?, what did I do wrong?, what if she comes back?, what could we have been?” — he also learned to let Blake be Blake, and not pigeonhole her into becoming another Raven. 

  
_That’s not fair._

  
His rational side kept reminding him. And it wasn’t. 

  
Blake wasn’t Raven. She never would be. And that was the point. 

  
Blake was Blake. Raven was Raven. 

  
And as time went on, Tai finally realized how grateful he was for that fact. 


End file.
